Be Not Afraid
by Lavenderangel
Summary: "He hunched in on himself, wishing he could crawl into a nest or a hole, somewhere small and soft where he would always feel safe." Why does Jude like climbing trees? There are some secrets that even Callie doesn't know. For Tunedtochords.


_Be Not Afraid_

Author's notes: Happy one year anniversary to the sweetest, most infuriating show ever. I wish I could quit you! Okay, that is a huge lie.

For the purposes of this fic, I need you to assume two things: That The Fosters have a garage, and That Brandon moved home post-finale. This is for Tunedtochords, who indirectly asked for something about Jude and Lena. Of course, because this is me, this also includes a large helping of Stef . Major thanks to Starophie, who went above and beyond with her betaing this time around. The title comes from Vienna Teng's Lullabye for a Stormy Night.

. . .

The door was locked.

Well, of course the door was locked, no one was home. It was good the door was locked, that meant everything inside the house was safe.

Except, this meant _he_ couldn't get inside the house.

Okay, no big deal, he liked being outside. The weather was really nice, and there were plenty of things he could do. Rummaging in his backpack, he pulled out his nintendo DS, checking the time. 3:30.

Lena was stuck at school for at least another two hours, dealing with parent-teacher conferences. Everyone else was… he had no idea where everyone else was. But that was fine, he didn't need to know. Lena had taken him aside this morning and talked about him staying home alone in the afternoons all week, since they both agreed there was no reason for him to be stuck hanging around waiting for her…

Somehow, she had neglected to tell him how he was supposed to get _inside _once he got here. He could always walk back to school and hang out on the beach, or use the phone in the office to call Connor. Wait, no, Connor was grounded for getting a bad grade in history. Maybe Jude could go over there anyway, if he promised to only work on homework? Forget calling, he should just go ring their doorbell. It would be harder for Connor's mom to make him leave when he was standing right in front of her.

Jeez, he was being crazy. It was totally fine to hang out here until more people got home. He had a water bottle and everything. With such a big family, someone would show up in no time. He forced himself to sit down on the grass, leaning against his backpack. Turning on his DS, he concentrated on getting through the cave in his Pokemon game. It was an older version handed down from Jesus, but he had never played it before, so it was technically new. His Togepi finally hatched, which was pretty cool. It was super cute, and with a lot of work he knew it would be a strong team member. The other boys might make fun of him for using such a "girly" Pokemon, but it would be their loss when he kicked their butts in battle.

He hadn't checked the time for almost half an hour, which had to be some kind of record. Now it was after four, which meant people would definitely have to be coming home soon. He paced around the front yard, peering into flower beds and under rocks. Considering Stef was a cop, she probably wouldn't go for a spare key hidden in the plants, but you never knew.

Ten minutes of searching only resulted in dirt under his fingernails. He checked the time again — 4:15. Where was everybody? Jesus was probably making out with Emma, one of his most favorite hobbies. But the rest of them really had no excuse. If he had a phone he could text or call. Callie would totally get why him being locked out was so freaky, and Mariana would also come right away, even if it was only to let him inside.

But he didn't have a cell phone. This hadn't been an issue until today, but tonight, he was definitely going to talk to Stef and Lena about getting one. That was, if they ever showed up!

He looked across the street. Mrs. Matthews was babysitting her grandkids again. One of the boys was just learning to ride a bike without training-wheels, and Jude grinned as he watched him peddle down the sidewalk, gradually picking up speed. Mrs. Matthews looked up and waved, and he waved back. He could probably go over there and wait in her house, maybe play with Owen and Jake. He didn't mind playing with little kids, they were kind of fun. But Mrs. Matthews might think that was weird. Besides, it wasn't like he would be stuck out here forever, someone would be home really, really soon, probably in the next couple of minutes. He glanced up and down the street, looking for any familiar cars. Nothing.

The last time something like this had happened had been a long time ago. Before Liam, before Callie was sent away. They probably hadn't been in foster care very long, definitely not long enough for them to memorize all the rules for the different houses on the first night, and to prepare for new ones to be added at any time. So Callie had been in trouble for some stupid thing, and he'd been told to play outside, while Melissa, their foster mom, "talked" to Callie about her behavior.

He had no idea how long he'd stayed out front, but it was long enough for neighbors to start home from work, and for the air to cool off. When he'd begun smelling food cooking in other houses, he figured he could go in. Except, the front door wouldn't open. He jiggled the handle a bunch of times, but it wouldn't budge.

He walked around the house to their backyard, which was really just a place for Hank to work on his trucks. He picked his way through the mess of car parts and empty beer cans, but that door was locked too. He banged on the glass for a while, but no one was in the kitchen to see, and he wasn't making enough noise to be heard.

He ran back around the side of the house, tripping and skinning both knees. With stinging hands and a racing heart, he tried the front door again. He knocked, even rang the doorbell. But that had been broken for months, so of course no one came.

There weren't any lights on. That hadn't mattered when he'd first come out here, because the sun had been mostly up. But now it was getting dark for real. If people were home, they would need to start turning on lights. If they were home, Callie would be wondering where he was. She wouldn't forget about him, no matter how mad she was.

He knocked again, hard enough for is knuckles to start hurting. "Callie," he called, but his voice came out all whispery. hIs throat was growing tight, though he wasn't crying. It was getting a little hard to breathe. "Callie. Hey, sis!"

No answer. No movement. Just dark, dark, dark.

Eventually, Hank had come home, smelling of smoke and beer. By then, Jude had been high up in a tree. It had been pitch black for a long, long time, and it had seemed safer to be up off the ground. He wished he was small enough to crawl into a birds nest. Those never had locks, and their mothers always brought the babies food, or showed them how to get it themselves. But Jude knew if he got too close to a nest, it would only scare the bird families. So he stayed very, very still, holding onto the trunk of the tree and concentrating on keeping his crying quiet.

Hank hadn't noticed him at first, and Jude had been so relieved at hearing a car turn into their driveway that he'd started down the tree as fast as he possibly could. He'd slipped off one of the lower branches, falling on his already sore hands and knees, Hank so taken aback at the sight of him that he forgot to yell.

Callie's punishment meant that she'd been sent straight to her room for the rest of the night, and he waited a little while before going to find her. Long enough for his nose to stop running, long enough to talk himself into cleaning out his scrapes, even though without Callie to blow on the sting, they hurt even more.

Still, it was better this way. It wouldn't do either of them any good if he was too upset to talk, and Callie was already in trouble. If he told her that he'd been locked out for four hours, she would get angry all over again, and that would make everything worse. So he hadn't said much, had tried to forget about all of it. A few weeks later they were moved to a different foster placement, and he'd never seen Hank or Melissa again.

He hadn't thought about them in forever, wasn't sure why he couldn't stop now. Except that it was 4:30, and no one was home, and he could feel that tightness creeping through his body again. He knew now that this just meant he was super scared, but no matter how much he told himself that there was nothing to be freaking out about, it just kept getting worse.

He pulled out his water bottle, along with the extra granola bar he kept in his backpack, just in case. Maybe he should start keeping a whole box in here. Oh, and string cheese. And maybe some of those little cupcakes Mariana liked so much… The chocolate stuck in his throat as He tried to swallow his first bite, but he forced himself to eat the entire thing and drink several sips of water. He hadn't been hungry, but it distracted him just enough to breathe.

He should go back to school. One of the other kids would have to be there, and he could borrow their keys. Instead, he jogged around the side of the house. Stef and Lena had a great backyard. Back here, maybe he could pretend that he was outside because he wanted to be. Tossing his bag on the ground, he climbed his favorite tree and settled in. He brought his _Percy Jackson_ book up with him, but he couldn't stop rereading the same paragraph.

The sun began to set, and then he couldn't read for real, too busy crying in long, gasping sobs. He bit down on the sleeve of his sweatshirt to try and quiet them, but that only smeared snot all over his face. His book fell. Somewhere, a car door slammed. He hunched in on himself, wishing he could crawl into a nest or a hole, somewhere small and soft where he would always feel safe.

"Hello, anyone home?" The back door opened, and there was Stef, craning her neck to look up at him, warm, wonderful light framing her face. "Ahoy, matey! Hey, slow down, where's the fire?"

He didn't answer, too busy scrambling down to the ground as fast as he possibly could. Arms reached out, helping him the last few feet. If it had been Lena or Callie, he might have turned and hugged them, but instead he just looked at her, his face tight from drying tears.

"Woah, easy there." She bent down, barely saving _Percy Jackson _from being stepped on. Then her hand was in his hair, and he nearly threw his arms around her, before realizing she was only pulling out a leaf.

"Um, the door was locked," he managed. His voice was mostly normal, except for when it almost but not quite broke on the last word.

"Oh, sweets, did no one teach you did the garage code?" Stef looked so sorry that his throat got clogged with tears all over again. He shook his head. Scooping up his backpack, she walked him inside with a hand on his shoulder, rambling about how disorganized they all were in the mornings. The house smelled like vanilla, and he had never been so happy to be home in his whole life.

Stef went upstairs to change, and he followed. At some point he'd gotten really sweaty, and it felt good to put fresh clothes on. He washed his face, standing in the bathroom until his breathing had evened out, focusing on the softness of the rug under his toes. He needed to never, ever forget what any of this felt like.

He crept back down the stairs in just his socks, wanting to make as little noise as possible. The kitchen was empty, and he released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. This was the best time to restock his backpack, something he hadn't needed to do for a long, long time. He'd put in three water bottles, just in case. Oh, and a box of granola bars. And maybe those peanut butter crackers Jesus liked so much. Everyone would just assume he'd eaten the last box, it was perfect—

"Hungry?"

He jumped, dropping the crackers. Stef was standing just behind him, smiling. She must have used special policewoman powers to sneak up on him.

"As much as Jesus would approve of your dinner, I have a better idea. Here, let's just put all this back first…" Before he could stop her, she was plucking things from his hands. He wanted to argue, but what could he say? He wasn't supposed to steal food anymore.

"No," he managed, when her hand closed around the water. "Can I keep these?"

"Are you sure you need so many?" Her voice was perfectly calm, but he couldn't look at her face to see if it matched. He and Stef didn't have conversations like this. Lena was who he talked to, when he was sad, or the few times he was in trouble. He remembered that fight Stef and Brandon had had when he and Callie had first moved in. She hadn't sounded calm then, and he was afraid to say something that might make her yell.

But this was important. "Yeah, I do. Just, just in case."

_Just in case of what?_ Lena would have asked. Lena would have made him look at her, might have even pulled him close. But Stef just stayed where she was, hands on hips. "All right, if you're sure."

He couldn't help looking up at her then. She was still smiling, but he realized for the first time that her eyes were very, very sad. He bit his lip, zipping the water bottles into his backpack before she had time to change her mind. The pantry door clicked closed, and his stomach sank. Empty, his bag was too empty with only his books. Did he still have some food upstairs? Lena had cleaned most of it out, but maybe…

"So, about dinner, I was thinking pizza. What do you say?"

"On a school night?"

"Why not? But we need to go right now, before everyone else gets home."

"How come?"

"Because the people who pick up the pizza get to pick out the toppings. Hurry!" She grabbed her keys.

She was beaming, and he could feel his lips twitching in response. "But, I don't have my shoes."

Stef ducked into the living room, coming back with a pair of Jesus's sneakers. "Come on, these'll do."

They were huge, and by the time they were getting into the car, he found he was laughing. "No one will be able to smell anything when I come home wearing these."

They got two extra large pizzas, one with just meat, and one with pepperoni and pineapple, his very favorite toppings. "Callie thinks this is disgusting," he confided to Stef as she was paying. "she says cooked fruit is gross if it's not in a pie."

"Pizza _is_ a pie." Stef just grinned at him, like they were sharing some kind of special secret. When he looked down at the counter, he found a bottle of Sprite — his favorite! — sitting on top of the pizza boxes. "Just in case you get thirsty on the way home," she said, not looking up from the credit card machine.

Twisting off the lid, he felt the last little bit of panic slipping away.

When they got back, almost everyone else was there. Lena was far too frazzled to say more than a passing comment about the meal, and it turned out that Jesus also liked pineapple. Of course, according to Mariana, there wasn't a pizza topping Jesus _didn't _like.

"How was your day?" Callie asked, dumping her fruit onto his plate.

"Strange," he said honestly, finishing off the last of his soda.

Everyone scattered after dinner. Lena usually helped him with math now, but she was probably tired from such a long day. There was Callie, but she and Mariana might want to know why they had gotten such a treat. Finally, he told himself to stop being such a baby, and burst into Brandon's room.

By the way he looked away from his keyboard, Jude realized ten seconds too late that he'd forgotten to knock. _Again._ "Um, how are you with equations?"

There was a long pause where Brandon looked far more sad than annoyed, before he sighed, patting the bed next to him. "I think I might remember how to do 'em. C'mere, let's see."

He wasn't as good a teacher as Lena, but the homework got done. "Hey, mom said no one showed you the garage code?", He asked, just as Jude was getting ready to leave. "Sorry about that."

He got out of there before Brandon could say anything else. It was only 8:45, but he was exhausted. Anyway, if he slid into the bathroom now, he was probably guaranteed at least some privacy. It felt good to slip into a shower, and even better to change into a pair of clean pajamas fifteen minutes later. He was ready to put this day behind him. Tomorrow, he would ask Callie for her keys, and everything would be fine.

He could hear Jesus talking to his computer before he even tried opening their door; so much for going to bed early. He went in just long enough to grab his book, Jesus glaring the whole time, but he held up a hand and hurried back out, hopefully before Emma had gotten a good look at his Superman pajamas.

They had been a birthday present from Callie, and probably supposed to be a joke. But they were really comfy, and he had used to like Superman a lot. Clark Kent was an orphan, just like him, and look how his life had turned out. Some nights, Jude needed a reminder that, no matter what happened, things would turn out all right for him, too.

He padded downstairs for a glass of milk. The kitchen was empty, and he braced himself for the urge to tear the pantry open and pull down all the boxes Stef had put back. It didn't come, at least not right away.

"Hey, Kal-El." Jeez, the moms were super good at sneaking up on him today. Licking a drop of spilled milk from his finger, he turned to give Lena a quick smile. "I haven't seen you all night. You get your math done?"

"Yeah, Brandon helped." He was glad for the excuse of putting the milk away, so he didn't have to keep looking at her. He wished someone else would come in, or even make a noise from upstairs.

She bustled around behind him, putting the kettle on the stove and pulling out tea bags. On any other night, he would have liked having this time alone together. It would be nice to sit with Lena, drinking their drinks and just being together, but right now, he just wanted to leave.

"I heard you had quite the afternoon." He could feel her eyes back on him, but he didn't bother looking up from his cup. Stupid Jesus and his stupid girls, none of this would have happened if he had gone to bed ten minutes ago.

There was the scrape of a stool, and suddenly Lena was right next to him. "Does it have something to do with why you've been avoiding me all night? I'm so sorry I forgot to make sure you knew the garage code, but why didn't you come straight back to school?"

She urged him down beside her, and he was too confused to argue. Had he been avoiding her? Maybe a little. It was just, she should have remembered to tell him! He wasn't mad, not really. Most of him knew that she was dealing with a bunch of stuff this week, and that this had all been an accident. He waited for her to bring up his almost-stealing and how they would need to talk about that at his next therapy appointment, but she didn't. Had Stef not told her? Why would she do that?

A warm hand brushed his cheek, and he flinched. This was why he hadn't wanted to talk to her. His panic had been overwhelming enough while it was happening. Lena's niceness might bring it all back, might make him tell her everything that had happened so long ago. He didn't want to go back there, tonight or otherwise. She wasn't saying anything, wasn't forcing him to either, but her eyes were tired and worried. He twisted his head, but she wouldn't let him go.

"I thought," he said finally, his voice not coming out over a whisper. "I thought maybe it meant you guys weren't coming back."

"What?" Lena was a smart lady, and he often wished she would immediately understand what he was trying to say, rather than forcing him to spell it out. Sometimes he thought she did, but this wasn't one of them.

So he told her the story. She let go of his face, but only to put her arm around him when he could feel his throat starting to get tight. She was still in her clothes from school, which smelled like sharpies and oranges. It helped to keep him grounded in their quiet kitchen, instead of slipping back to Hank and Melissa's.

He looked out to the backyard once he was done, swiping his sleeve over both cheeks. "Don't tell Callie, please. I don't want her to feel bad."

Lena ran a hand through his hair — definitely on purpose. "She would feel sad for you, not guilty, just like I do. I'm so, so sorry that happened, sweetheart. But today was nothing like that."

He looked back to her, suddenly frustrated. "I know. I knew it even while it was going on, but I just… I couldn't make myself believe it."

Her arm tightened around him, and he allowed himself a few seconds of just leaning into her shoulder. "Sometimes," she said very softly, "when we're in a stressful situation, it reminds us of things that have happened in the past. Which is why you should have come to the school, or gone across the street and called the office." He felt his face going hot, jerked away from her half-hug. "I'm not telling you this because you're in trouble, I just need you to understand that you had options." She tilted his chin, looking him straight in the eye. "You _always _have options with us, Jude."

"I know, but it won't matter. Tomorrow I'll just stay at school, or — or borrow Callie's keys." He needed them to get off this subject. whenever Lena talked like this, he found himself somehow feeling happy and sad at the same time.

"We'll get you your own keys, as soon as things are less crazy." She stood up. "But in the meantime…" She walked toward the garage, motioning for him to follow. "We'll make sure you know the code."

The current code was 3772. If that had any special meaning, Lena didn't say, but she suggested they change it to something that did. "It'll be easier for all of us that way." It turned out she had no idea how to do this, and watching her struggle was a little bit funny. Jude went and reheated her tea, after it became clear this might take a while.

While he was waiting for the microwave, he saw Stef standing in the kitchen doorway, looking at Lena the way Jesus sometimes looked at Emma. She gave Jude a wink as he poured himself another glass of milk. "Think I should go save her?"

"I think she might yell if you tried." He watched Stef watching Lena, suddenly wanting to thank her. For the sprite, for the snacks, for coming home exactly when she had. but Stef wasn't the type of person to make a big deal about that kinda thing, so he settled for making a second cup of tea, hesitating over the choices, instinctively knowing that she didn't like chai. Finally, he just went with mint, which seemed like a safe choice, given how late it was.

He handed it to Stef on his way back out the door, surprised when she ruffled his hair with her free hand. Lena was almost swearing at the keypad, and she took her drink distractedly. "Yes!" she exclaimed a moment later. From the house, Stef started laughing.

"Okay, now we need to think of a new code. Any suggestions from the peanut gallery?" Lena shot a maybe-pretend-glare in Stef's direction.

They tossed birthdays and anniversaries back and forth, but nothing seemed right. Finally, Stef came outside, typing in 0324. "This was my favorite day of the year," she said, and Lena started to smile.

It took him a second to remember, and then he could feel his face splitting with his own smile. "I think it was my favorite day ever." There was no way he would be able to forget _that_ code.

Twenty minutes later, he was in bed, listening to Jesus trying to text under his covers. He was exhausted, but his mind wouldn't stop working, even when Jesus gave up and put his phone away. He was glad he'd ended up talking to Lena, and ecstatic over the new code. There was just one thing still wrong. He slipped out of bed and over to his backpack, pulling out the two extra water bottles, creeping on tiptoe to place them back in the pantry.

He didn't need them after all.


End file.
